Finally, there's a Staten Island rebuilding task force

Kissam Avenue in Oakwood Beach was one of the areas hardest hit by Sandy. The task force will focus on rebuiding in low-lying areas near the shore. Staten Island Advance photo

After weeks of what can only be called inexplicable dithering, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced that a task force to focus specifically on the rebuilding effort on Staten Island after Sandy will be convened.

Finally.

Forming a task force modeled on the successful Growth Management Task Force was the right thing to do back when Councilman James Oddo and the Advance urged the mayor to do it. But that was weeks ago and very little had been said about it by members of the administration since, for whatever reasons.

In fact, there were indications as recently as last week that the mayor might have been moving away from that tight-focus approach in favor of a more "global" approach.

Now, with his announcement on Thursday at a gathering of the Staten Island Economic Development Corp. in Lower Manhattan, the task force is a matter of record.

The panel, Mr. Bloomberg said, would work "to address the short- and the long-term issues that people still face being displaced from their homes on Staten Island."

He added, "We are getting this process into high gear, of getting people back into their houses."

The first meeting of many of those expected to serve on the panel will take place Wednesday at City Hall. It will include city Economic Development Corp. head Seth Pinsky, who is leading the rebuilding effort on the Island and in Queens and Brooklyn; Borough President James Molinaro; City Councilmen James Oddo and Vincent Ignizio and other officials. Peter Spencer, the mayor's press liaison for storm-related matters on Staten Island, said the aim of that first meeting is to "start to lay the groundwork for the task force."

Among the first things to be taken up soon after will be the process by which the owners of badly damaged and/or vulnerable homes can be bought out.

Mr. Spencer also said that, in view of the task force's mission of guiding the rebuilding process here, it would be "prudent" for those with severely damaged homes to wait to rebuild until the Federal Emergency Management Agency issues new flood maps later this month. Those maps will include new minimum elevations for homes in flood zones, Spencer said.

"Don't elevate until you know what the elevations are," he said.

The mayor said that, citywide, there were 357 houses "totally wiped out or are so badly damaged, you could not bring them back" and pledged, "We can't undo the damage the hurricane made, but we can help people get back up and get going again. There's still a long ways to go, but we're not going to walk away from anybody."

Noting that Staten Island was well ahead of the other boroughs in terms of recovering from the storm, Mr. Bloomberg said, "It just takes a long time to get going. We have an awful lot of work in front of us. We're going to make sure that everybody gets back into their houses."

Just think how much further along Staten Island would be in the recovery process if the task force had been convened sooner.